#172 - Pichu (Christmas)

Pokémon Vortex, its advertisers and affiliates are deeply committed to protecting the privacy of Internet users. Below is information outlining our continued support for the responsible management of consumer information.

Consumer Information

During the process of visiting our websites, Pokémon Vortex does not collect any personally identifiable information about you such as name, address, or phone number. However, Pokémon Vortex does obtain some types of non-personally identifiable information such as the Internet Service Provider you use to connect to the Internet, your browser type, or the type of computer operating system you use (Macintosh or Windows, for example). The information collected by Pokémon Vortex is used for the purpose of targeting advertising.
In some cases, you may voluntarily provide personal information in response to a specific advert (this ad may ask you to fill out a survey or provide your zip code). If this does occur, Pokémon Vortex may collect this information on behalf of an advertiser. This information is used by an advertiser to respond to your request. In addition, Pokémon Vortex may combine this information with other users' information and review it in an aggregate form to understand the type of individuals who view a specific type of ad or visit a particular kind of website.

Data Collection

Pokémon Vortex, as well as most sites on the Internet, use "cookies" to enhance your experience on the web. Pokémon Vortex cannot use these cookies to personally identify you in any way. What are cookies and why do we use them? A cookie is a piece of data that is provided to you the first time you visit a website. This unique data may later be recovered from your computer. This cookie can help Pokémon Vortex ensure that we don't serve you the same ad multiple times, and help our advertisers understand what you like and don't like about their offerings so that they can cater better to your needs the next time you are interested in their products or services. We believe that cookies enhance your Internet experience.

Limit of Liability

User agrees that the use of Pokémon Vortex's services is entirely at User's own risk. Pokémon Vortex's services are provided on an "as is" basis without warranties of any kind, either expressed or implied, constructive, or statutory, including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability, non-infringement or fitness for a particular purpose.

Pokémon Vortex makes no guarantee of availability of service and reserves the right to change, withdraw, suspend, or discontinue any functionality or feature of Pokémon Vortex's services. In no event shall Pokémon Vortex be liable for any damages, including, without limitation, direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of the use of or inability to use Pokémon Vortex's services or any content thereon. This disclaimer applies, without limitation, to any damages or injury, whether for breach of contract, tort, or otherwise, caused by any failure of performance; error; omission; interruption; deletion; defect; delay in operation or transmission; computer virus; file corruption; communication-line failure; network or system outage; or theft, destruction, unauthorized access to, alteration of, or use of any record.

User agrees to indemnify and hold Pokémon Vortex harmless from any loss, liability, claims, damages and expenses, including attorneys fees, arising from or related to the content, use, or deletion of User's Files or use of any other feature or service. This expressly includes:

• User's responsibility for any and all liability arising from the violation or infringement of proprietary rights or copyrights.
• Any defamatory or unlawful material contained within User's Files.

To ensure the privacy of kids, we do not collect any personally identifiable information from children of any age. Only a user name that they have chosen and information related to the game (such as Pokemon they have, badges earned, etc) is available to other members, unless they wish to share any internet based networking display names with other members. This feature can be turned off or left blank to protect identities.

Any personal information provided to Pokémon Vortex will not be sold or given out.

Suggestions may be sent to Pokémon Vortex, but most will not be reviewed or implemented. Pokémon Vortex will not give credit or be liable (monetarily or otherwise) to anyone for any suggestions submitted or implemented.

Rules of Play

By registering an account on Pokémon Vortex you agree to the following rules of play:

• You may not buy or sell anything on this website for real money. This includes but is not limited to Pokémon Vortex accounts, inventory items, promo codes or individual Pokémon.
• You may not use any software (including browser debugging/developer tools, browser extensions and macro/hotkey tools) to automate any aspect of gameplay.
• You may not access, or attempt to gain access to any account that does not belong to you.
• Attempting to scam, phish or manipulate other users through in-game messages, Discord, forums, or by any other means is not acceptable.
• Failure to report game bugs/glitches and/or use said exploit in a beneficial way is strictly prohibited.
• Altering the code (including but not limited to the user interface) of Pokémon Vortex is not allowed. The website must be used as provided without any visual or mechanical alterations.

Violating any of the rules of play may result in action(s) being taken against you and/or your account. Depending upon the severity of the violation and evidence we hold, we may decide to restrict your access to this website (including a permanent ban of your Pokémon Vortex account(s), past, present and future) to protect the integrity and fairness of the game for all other players.

Store Purchases & Refunds

By making a purchase on the Pokémon Vortex store, you agree that you have permission to spend the funds being used.

If we detect fraudulent activity, all future transactions from the user in question will be denied and reported to the payment processor.

All purchases are given to the customer in the form of a redeemable promotional code that can be redeemed within the game when logged in. A list of all purchases (unused) promo codes can be seen in the users item inventory under the "Promo Codes" sub-category.

Customers may request a refund for any purchase made within the last seven days, for any reason, so long as the purchased promotional code has not yet been redeemed. Once the seven day refund period has elapsed, customers may still request a refund, but Pokémon Vortex is no longer under any obligation to issue a refund after this time.

If a user is having issues with a purchase, it is recommended that they contact Pokémon Vortex through the support system available for store customers found here: https://forums.pokemon-vortex.com/support/
Please do not submit general game issues here, the support system is strictly for store customers.

Special Thanks

Of course, Pokémon Vortex wouldn't be possible without the external help of numerous software developers, digital artists, hosting providers and you, the users.
Here are some of the main thank you's we would like to send out in no particular order.

The Players

Without you, we wouldn't exist. You're responsible for funding the website through advertisements, and assisting with ideas for updates that YOU wanted to see in the game. Thank you for sticking with us and making Pokémon Vortex possible!

Pokémon Art

The Pokémon images you see on the website are courtesy of Xous54. We suggest you follow their work and thank them for providing us with enjoyable digital art to display.

Pokémon Sprites

Most generation 6, 7 & 8 sprites are courtesy of Smogon, They are a great source for learning how to battle competitively in the Pokémon games, check them out.

• X & Y Sprite Project
• Sun & Moon Sprite Project
• Sword & Shield Sprite Project

Various generation 6, 7 & 8 sprites are by SmartAss, u44151 & SpheX, three talented spriters here on Vortex.

Darkrown is designed by Esepibe and sprited by Rob. We ask that you please don't use it without proper permission. We also suggest you follow Esepibe's work and thank them for the design of Darkrown.

Rotom (Halloween) was made by Nova back in 2010 on v1 of Pokémon Vortex.

Discord Banners

Most Discord banners used on our server are made from images created by all0412.

Map Design

Assorted map tiles were made by Kyledove. Follow their work and thank them for making our maps possible.

Custom overworld sprites were made by 874521.

PMD Portraits (Vortex Avatars)

Custom PMD portraits used for profile avatars were made by Charburst, a very talented concept artist.

Shiny Genesect was made by tipsyturtle & Shiny Darkrai was made by straya.

Software & Scripts

Ionicons - Ionicons is a premium icon font for the Ionic Framework. Hundreds of available icons at your disposal.

jQuery, jQuery UI & jQuery Mobile - jQuery is a fast and compact JavaScript library with immense power to bring HTML to life.

TableSorter - tablesorter.js is a nice, efficient way to integrate the ability of table sorting to your HTML table columns without any hassle.

Bootstrap - Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web.

IPS Community Suite 4 - IP Forums is a small part of what IPS has to offer to run a community YOUR way.

PhotoSwipe - photoswipe.js is a hassle free JavaScript photo gallery that requires no dependancies and is a great way to showcase digital images.

jStorage - jStorage is a cross-browser key-value store database to store data locally in the browser.

Klass - Klass is an expressive, cross platform JavaScript Class provider with a classical interface to prototypal inheritance.

retina.js - retina.js makes it easy to serve high-resolution images to devices with retina displays.

MediaWiki - MediaWiki is a free software open source wiki package written in PHP - Perfect for compiling a knowledge base on any project.

Owl Carousel 2 - owl.carousel.js is a touch enabled jQuery plugin that lets you create a beautiful responsive carousel slider.

HTML5 Shiv - The HTML5 Shiv enables use of HTML5 sectioning elements in legacy Internet Explorer and provides basic HTML5 styling for Internet Explorer 6-9, Safari 4.x (and iPhone 3.x), and Firefox 3.x.